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Roosevelt Island Tram

The Roosevelt Island tram runs every seven and a half minutes during rush hour and fits a maximum of 125 people. Credit
Librado Romero/The New York Times

Every weekday in January, Billie Cohen is documenting a different commute for NYTimes.com/realestate, Here is a listing of all the articles in the Next Stop series.

Riding Back and Forth From 8:10 a.m to 9:30 a.m., Jan. 15, Tuesday.

The tram doors closed and Gregg Paravati, who has been a conductor for 32 years on the Roosevelt Island tram, made his usual announcement: “Good morning. If you’re standing please hold onto a handrail or hand strap while the tram is in motion.”

Judy Berdy, president of the Roosevelt Island Historical Society and a 32-year tram rider herself, smiled. “No islanders hold onto the hanging things,” she said with an insiders whisper. “That’s how we know who the tourists are.”

And it seemed she was right. Of the nearly 110 commuters who were crammed onto the cable car at 8:10 a.m., only one had his arm raised to a hand strap. The rest had long ago developed their “tram legs,” and instead spent the five-minute ride greeting fellow commuters and their kids, who were crowded into one corner, faces glued to the windows.

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The prized "special seat" is used by the under-six crowd who need a platform to see out the window.Credit
Billie Cohen

Eric Schwartzman rides the tram with his young daughter every morning, and said he has on occasion waited for a less-crowded car just so his daughter can get the prized “special seat.” The seat is actually just a stepstool between the conductor’s stand and the tram’s back bench, but it provides the step up in height needed for small children to be able to see out the window. As expected, the under-6 crowd flocked to the corner as we all boarded, some breaking away from their parents just to get a good view.

Mr. Schwartzman moved with his family to Roosevelt Island in 2006 — on the day the tram got stuck for several hours. He had entered the lottery for an apartment in one of the island’s Mitchell-Lama buildings, hoping to take advantage of the neighborhood’s space and affordability and was awarded a three-bedroom apartment. He’s now such a fan of the enclave that he writes a daily blog about it, RooseveltIsland360.blogspot.com.

As the tram cycled through the morning, so did the commuters. Around 8 a.m., I met parents with school-age children. Closer to 8:45 a.m., there were several workers from the United Nations. And by 9 a.m., another crush of professionals rode to their jobs in the city, including graveyard shifters going home after a stint at the island’s Coler-Goldwater Hospital. On the much more sparsely filled tram ride to Roosevelt Island, I met more employees of the hospital.

Everyone heralded the tram’s comfort, safety and unbeatable views as reasons for their choice of commute, but the thing that surprised me was that they said it was also more convenient. For them, connecting to East Side buses or a train at 59th Street was a much more palatable commute than taking the subway under the river.

True, island residents who work on the west side of Manhattan, are more likely to take the F train, which stops a few blocks from the tram station, but a common criticism of the train was its overcrowding. “The subway at this time of day — I might have to wait for a few trains to go by because they’re so crowded,” said Karen Johnson, who has lived on the island for 21 years and commutes to her family’s frame shop on the Upper East Side. “We have fierce loyalty to the tram,” Ms. Berdy added.

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Gregg Paravati has been a conductor on the tram for 32 years.Credit
Billie Cohen

Watching the Manhattan-bound commuters pile onto the tram, they all seemed to know each other. They even made sure that their children said “hello” and “good-bye” to Mr. Paravati, the amiable conductor who chanced upon the job 32 years ago and has been working the trams ever since.

“One day, I was driving across the bridge and saw the towers being erected,” he said. “I got curious, so I drove over and asked. They were hiring 30 people, and they told me I’d have the job for two, maybe three years because the subway was coming in.” Ms. Berdy laughed as Mr. Paravati recounted the tale. The subway didn’t end up arriving on the island for 13 years, and she remembers the date exactly: October 29, 1989, 11 a.m. For her, as well as all the others, it seems they would’ve been just as happy if it had never come at all.

At a Glance

Until Portland, Ore., opened its aerial commuter tram in 2006, the Roosevelt Island tram was the only commuting one in America (everyone wants to be like New York, eh?). Well, our tram was first, and it has swooshed across the East River since 1976. It travels 16 miles per hour, completing its crossing of the river in four and a half minutes and reaching a height of 250 feet, which is higher than the Queensboro Bridge at certain points.

The tram runs every seven and a half minutes during rush hour and fits a maximum of 125 people. It gets crowded between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m., but, according to islanders, it is still less claustrophobic than the F train that stops a few blocks away. When you get on, you can try to nab a seat on the front or back bench (the rest is standing room only), but leave the “special seat” for the children. It’s really just a stepstool between the conductor’s stand and the tram’s back bench, but it lets the little ones enjoy the view.

Trivia

The tram was originally conceived to be a temporary solution to the island’s lack of subway service. Prior to its inception in 1976, anyone traveling to Roosevelt Island rode a trolley across the Queensboro Bridge, which was equipped with an elevator to take people down to the island. A restored trolley kiosk now serves as a visitor center and is located on the site of the elevator building. The F-train station on Roosevelt Island opened October 29, 1989.